Join us on Saturday, September 13, 5-8pm for the Opening Reception of Before the Americas at Gillespie Gallery inside the Art and Design Building on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus.

The address to the building is 4515 Patriot Circle, and the nearest paid parking garage is the Shenandoah Parking Deck.

Before the Americas
August 25 - November 15, 2025

Before the Americas, curated by Cheryl Edwards, is an art historical survey featuring 45 works by Afro-Latino, Caribbean, and African American artists, many of whom have lived and worked in Greater Washington. These artists confront racial and colonial constructs and have often been invisible within common art historical narratives. Their works span painting, printmaking, sculpture, book art, performance, and video art. The exhibit traces the significance of these artists through four themes: Genetic Memory, Migration, Invisibility, and Interconnectivity.

Join us on Thursday, September 11, 2025 from 5-8pm for a Virtual Artist Talk with the artists of Kî me Ez?, on view at Mason Exhibitions Arlington September 5 - October 25, 2025.

The exhibition features work by Pedram Baldari, Sener Ozmen, Sahar Tarighi, Beizar Aradini, Huner Emin, and Nuveen Barwari.

Questions about the event should be directed to Alissa Maru at amaru@gmu.edu

Join us this Friday for an exhibition closing reception and artists' talk for Neither/Nor! Current MFA candidates Liz Johnson and Traci Reynolds will be in conversation with Dr. Anu Aneja (Professor, Women and Gender Studies) to discuss their respective artistic practices and work currently on view in Fenwick Gallery. A small reception will follow.

Registration is free and strongly encouraged to reserve your place.

Friday, September 5, 2:00–3:30PM
Fenwick Library Main Reading Room (Fenwick 2001)

Join Mason Exhibitions and the George Mason University School of Art on Saturday, August 9, 9am-1pm for a Community Stage Sk8 Session at Powhatan Springs Skatepark in Arlington, VA.

The session will be facilitated by a longtime local artist and skater, Ben Ashworth. This is an open invitation to all artists and creators to join us in turning Powhatan Springs Skatepark into a community stage!

This session is aligned with current art exhibition, The Invisible Skate Theory, on view at Mason Exhibitions Arlington until August 16, 2025.

THE INVISIBLE SKATE THEORY

The theory that we can, or already are, connected through skateboarding in a way we cannot see.

Mason Exhibitions Arlington
June 4 - August 16, 2025
Curated by Gato

Skateboarding has always existed on the fringe of cities, of systems, and tradition. The Invisible Skate Theory explores the community built in these edges, creating new spaces and paying homage to those that paved the way. Where they’ve long been left out yet continue to pay it forward. 

Rooted in the DMV’s growing skate scene and expanded through digital platforms like Instagram, this exhibition centers the often-unseen networks of connection, care, and co-creation that hold today’s skateboarding culture together.

It tells the story of how skaters without industry access have made their own maps finding each other through meetups, zines, pop-up events, and social media. It highlights pivotal moments like the 2024 arrival of Bolivia’s all-female skate collective, Imilla Skate, to Washington, D.C. brought by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. That cross-cultural exchange continues to ripple across communities and coasts.

This exhibition also looks at the imbalance that persists: women are skating, but they are still underrepresented in leadership, industry, and visibility — especially outside of major hubs like NYC and LA. In the DMV, that gap is being closed not by big brands, but by organizers, artists, and everyday skaters doing the work on their own terms.

The Invisible Skate Theory poses the question of how this connection can expand further through the shared moments in this exhibition. While celebrating the behind-the-scenes labor, friendships, and the powerful force of finding a place to belong. It’s about movement, across cities and communities,  and what happens when those movements align.

Join us on Friday, August 8, 8-10pm at the FUSE Conference Center on the Mason Square Campus (3401 Fairfax Dr, Arlington, VA 22201)

"Can I Kick It?" is an engagement where films are musically scored live with hip-hop and other genres, led by DJ 2-Tone Jones. To incorporate the skateboard-forward exhibition at Mason Exhibitions Arlington, Invisible Skate Theory, we'll be screening Skate Kitchen. 

Skate Kitchen is about Camille's life as a lonely suburban teenager changes dramatically when she befriends a group of girl skateboarders. As she journeys deeper into this raw New York City subculture, she begins to understand the true meaning of friendship as well as her inner self.

Come enjoy along community and learn the deeper threads that the culture of skateboarding provides in our culture.

This event is in partnership with University Life Arlington.

Shred hard or play hard? Don’t ditch your gear — fix it up and make it yours.

Bring your ripped jeans, hoodies, or whatever needs love. We’ll show you how to turns rips into art with upcycled fabric, sashiko thread, and visible stitchwork that shows off your creativity.

No experience needed — just bring something to mend and your good vibes.

The workshop will be held in conjunction with the Invisible Skate Theory—an exhibition on belonging, visibility & skateboarding culture—and will be led by GMU alumna Alison Davis-Holland (she/her) along with other volunteer Mend-tors with Art on the Mend. Alison founded Art on the Mend to make it easy for individuals and communities to create and connect in welcoming, engaging “third spaces” (spaces besides home and work). Alison is a DC- and Virginia-raised artist, cartographer, geographer, writer, master naturalist, and a lifelong sampler of art classes. Her studies include Japanese textile art like sashiko, boro, and kimono printing, as well as embroidery, drawing, painting, mixed media, metal sculpture, jewelry, and stained glass.

Visit https://artonthemend.org to subscribe and get more information on this new volunteer-led initiative launching mending programs throughout our community.

Join Mason Exhibitions and the George Mason University School of Art on Saturday, July 26, 9am-1pm for a Community Stage Sk8 Session at Powhatan Springs Skatepark in Arlington, VA.

The session will be facilitated by a longtime local artist and skater, Ben Ashworth. This is an open invitation to all artists and creators to join us in turning Powhatan Springs Skatepark into a community stage!

This session is aligned with current art exhibition, The Invisible Skate Theory, on view at Mason Exhibitions Arlington until August 16, 2025.

THE INVISIBLE SKATE THEORY

The theory that we can, or already are, connected through skateboarding in a way we cannot see.

Mason Exhibitions Arlington
June 4 - August 16, 2025
Curated by Gato

Skateboarding has always existed on the fringe of cities, of systems, and tradition. The Invisible Skate Theory explores the community built in these edges, creating new spaces and paying homage to those that paved the way. Where they’ve long been left out yet continue to pay it forward. 

Rooted in the DMV’s growing skate scene and expanded through digital platforms like Instagram, this exhibition centers the often-unseen networks of connection, care, and co-creation that hold today’s skateboarding culture together.

It tells the story of how skaters without industry access have made their own maps finding each other through meetups, zines, pop-up events, and social media. It highlights pivotal moments like the 2024 arrival of Bolivia’s all-female skate collective, Imilla Skate, to Washington, D.C. brought by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. That cross-cultural exchange continues to ripple across communities and coasts.

This exhibition also looks at the imbalance that persists: women are skating, but they are still underrepresented in leadership, industry, and visibility — especially outside of major hubs like NYC and LA. In the DMV, that gap is being closed not by big brands, but by organizers, artists, and everyday skaters doing the work on their own terms.

The Invisible Skate Theory poses the question of how this connection can expand further through the shared moments in this exhibition. While celebrating the behind-the-scenes labor, friendships, and the powerful force of finding a place to belong. It’s about movement, across cities and communities,  and what happens when those movements align.

Join us on Thursday, June 26, 6-8PM at Founders Gallery in Van Metre Hall on the Mason Square Campus for the Opening Reception of Re:Vision & Re:Frame, a juried exhibition collaboratively produced by Mason Exhibitions and Arlington Art Alliance.

Join Mason Exhibitions on Saturday, June 21, 7-10pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington for a Reception for The Invisible Skate Theory.

THE INVISIBLE SKATE THEORY

The theory that we can be, or already are, connected through skateboarding in a way we cannot see.

Mason Exhibitions Arlington
June 4 - August 16, 2025
Curated by Gato

Skateboarding has always existed on the fringe of cities, of systems, and tradition. The Invisible Skate Theory explores the community built in these edges, creating new spaces and paying homage to those that paved the way. Where they’ve long been left out yet continue to pay it forward. 

Rooted in the DMV’s growing skate scene and expanded through digital platforms like Instagram, this exhibition centers the often-unseen networks of connection, care, and co-creation that hold today’s skateboarding culture together.

It tells the story of how skaters without industry access have made their own maps finding each other through meetups, zines, pop-up events, and social media. It highlights pivotal moments like the 2024 arrival of Bolivia’s all-female skate collective, Imilla Skate, to Washington, D.C. brought by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. That cross-cultural exchange continues to ripple across communities and coasts.

This exhibition also looks at the imbalance that persists: women are skating, but they are still underrepresented in leadership, industry, and visibility — especially outside of major hubs like NYC and LA. In the DMV, that gap is being closed not by big brands, but by organizers, artists, and everyday skaters doing the work on their own terms.

The Invisible Skate Theory poses the question of how this connection can expand further through the shared moments in this exhibition. While celebrating the behind-the-scenes labor, friendships, and the powerful force of finding a place to belong. It’s about movement, across cities and communities,  and what happens when those movements align.

Join Mason Exhibitions and the George Mason University School of Art on Saturday, June 7, 9am-1pm for a Community Stage Sk8 Session at Powhatan Springs Skatepark in Arlington, VA.

The session will be facilitated by a longtime local artist and skater, Ben Ashworth. This is an open invitation to all artists and creators to join us in turning Powhatan Springs Skatepark into a community stage!

This session is aligned with current art exhibition, The Invisible Skate Theory, on view at Mason Exhibitions Arlington until August 16, 2025.

THE INVISIBLE SKATE THEORY

The theory that we can, or already are, connected through skateboarding in a way we cannot see.

Mason Exhibitions Arlington
June 4 - August 16, 2025
Curated by Gato

Skateboarding has always existed on the fringe of cities, of systems, and tradition. The Invisible Skate Theory explores the community built in these edges, creating new spaces and paying homage to those that paved the way. Where they’ve long been left out yet continue to pay it forward. 

Rooted in the DMV’s growing skate scene and expanded through digital platforms like Instagram, this exhibition centers the often-unseen networks of connection, care, and co-creation that hold today’s skateboarding culture together.

It tells the story of how skaters without industry access have made their own maps finding each other through meetups, zines, pop-up events, and social media. It highlights pivotal moments like the 2024 arrival of Bolivia’s all-female skate collective, Imilla Skate, to Washington, D.C. brought by the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. That cross-cultural exchange continues to ripple across communities and coasts.

This exhibition also looks at the imbalance that persists: women are skating, but they are still underrepresented in leadership, industry, and visibility — especially outside of major hubs like NYC and LA. In the DMV, that gap is being closed not by big brands, but by organizers, artists, and everyday skaters doing the work on their own terms.

The Invisible Skate Theory poses the question of how this connection can expand further through the shared moments in this exhibition. While celebrating the behind-the-scenes labor, friendships, and the powerful force of finding a place to belong. It’s about movement, across cities and communities,  and what happens when those movements align.

Join Mason Exhibitions on Saturday, May 10, 12-2pm at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas for an intimate reception with artist Roshanak Hooshmand, in celebration of her exhibition The Fire of Spring.

Roshanak Banoo Hooshmand (b. 1933, Tehran, Iran) started painting for the first time 10 years ago at the age of 82. Over the last decade she has been remarkably prolific and ambitious, creating a vibrant body of work that is deeply reflective of a lifetime of experience, introspection, and devotion to the wisdom found in ancient Persian culture. Inspired by poets such as Jalal Al-Din Rumi and Hafiz Shiraz, whose verses encourage learning from the natural world, embracing the present, and enacting the divine through love and devotion, Houshmand’s paintings celebrate the sensuality of color, emotional truths, and direct self-expression.

Though self-taught, her paintings show the influence of a range of classical and modern art historical precedents. Her “direct from the tube” approach to color is similar to Fauvists such as Henri Matisse, while her playful use of mixed pictorial perspective has analogies in Persian Miniature painting as well as the neo-cubist techniques of contemporary painter David Hockney. In addition to natural forms and scenes drawn from memory or observation, Hooshmand often works in a purely abstract mode creating loose geometries that resemble textile patterns, vases and other decorative motifs that may include poetic verses in Farsi inscribed on their surfaces.

Like the great poets she admires, Hooshmand’s art is an emotional channel for an inner spirit deeply engaged with the circumstances of her surroundings. Through painting, she transmutes this unique perspective into an offering—the world anew and full of possibilities—a blazing spring.

Join us at Mason Exhibitions Arlington on Thursday, May 1, 6-8pm!

Current Arlington County Poet Laureate Courtney LeBlanc and Poets Laureate Emeritae Katherine E. Young and Holly Karapetkova read their work and discuss the role of the Poet Laureate in building community through the literary arts. 

Holly Karapetkova is Poet Laureate Emerita of Arlington County and the recipient of a 2022 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Her most recent book of poetry, Dear Empire, was co-winner of the 2024 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize and winner of the 2024 Willliam Meredith Poetry Award and was published by Gunpowder Press.

Book Synopsis:

Dear Empire is co-winner of the 2024 Barry Spacks Poetry Prize and winner of the 2024 William Meredith Prize for Poetry. The poems in this collection offer an unflinching look at the Empire in which we all dwell. Karapetkova writes with a passionate, urgent voice, compelled to call out injustice wherever she sees it, tackling issues of race, white supremacy, and other forms of personal and historical empire. More information (including blurbs) located here: https://gunpowderpress.com/product/dear-empire-poems-by-holly-karapetkova/

Katherine E. Young is the author of Woman Drinking Absinthe and Day of the Border Guards (2014 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize finalist) and editor of Written in Arlington. She translates poetry and prose by Russian-language writers from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. She served as the inaugural Poet Laureate for Arlington, Virginia (2016-2018).

Book synopsis:

People and Trees by Akram Aylisli, translated by Katherine E. Young (Plamen Press, 2024)

Set in the mountains of Azerbaijan just after World War II, Akram Aylisli’s People and Trees chronicles the wrenching transformation of traditional Azeri society under Soviet rule. Private land is collectivized; mosques are converted to silk factories or bulldozed to build “palaces of culture.” The young narrator, Sadyk, fantasizes about striding hand-in-hand with a beautiful girl into the bright, socialist future he’s seen on the movie screen. The village women, meanwhile, navigate religious, economic, and social upheaval, including famine and the loss of an entire generation of men to war. Drawing on the rich folklore traditions of the Caucasus mountains, this timeless collection of “tales” is the work that put Azerbaijan’s greatest living author on the international literary map.

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of four full-length collections, most recently, Her Dark Everything. She is the Arlington County Poet Laureate and founder and editor-in-chief of Riot in Your Throat, an independent poetry press. She loves nail polish, tattoos, and a soy latte each morning. Find her online at www.courtneyleblanc.com.

Book synopsis:

Her Dark Everything by Courtney LeBlanc: Part elegy to a friend who died by suicide, part love poem to a friend who continues to survive, Her Dark Everything is a collection that will pull you through the darkest depths until you feel the light against your skin. It will make you grieve for who have lost the battle against the beast that is depression while simultaneously making your grateful for those who stay and fight. In equal measures dark and light, soft and sharp, Her Dark Everything will roost in your heart permanently.

Join us on Wednesday, April 30 from 7-11pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington for Noise Awareness Day!

Noise Awareness taps into and exposes the unconventional and vibrant side of our student community.  Noise Awareness this year will be in conversation with the current art exhibition on view, Nothing Personal: A Collaboration in Black and White.

AVT 374  (Dr. Thomas Stanley) instructs students in the multiple contexts in which sound art can be presented, including live performance. The gallery welcomes Music Research Strategist Marshall Trammell in workshop-performance process involving first training the attendees in improvised performance and the interpretation of graphical scores. Then students from AVT 374 will use Trammell’s pre-prepared 2’ x 2’ foam-core boards to conduct a blended ensemble featuring Trammell, Dr. Stanley and students (a vocalist and electronic musicians).

Professor Brian Davis' Advanced Sculpture class will present a series of interactive, touch-sensitive cast cement sculptures that respond to human contact with sound. When touched, each object triggers audio—potentially including recordings of its own making and other non-musical sounds—that have been collaboratively composed and layered by students from both Davis’s and Stanley’s classes. 

Join us on Thursday, April 24, 7-9pm at Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery for the Spring Celebration of Offerings to the Potomac: Acknowledging Indigenous Place.

Celebrate the deep and meaningful research that this exhibition is built on, and all the talented artists, scholars, and community members who made it happen! There will be traditional drumming, dancing, singing, and skateboarding!

We welcome you to consider ways to honor the ancestors, join in caring for these lands in right relationship, and support contemporary local Indigenous communities. This is an Indigenous place. Home is here. 

Questions about the event should be emailed to Yassmin Salem (mailto: ysalem@gmu.edu)

Join us on Friday, April 18, 4:30-6pm at Gillespie Gallery in the Art and Design Building for two poetry readings followed by a Q&A led by Katey Funderburgh. Books will also be for sale!

Taylor Franson-Thiel and Martheaus Perkins, two Poetry MFA students at George Mason University both have debut poetry collections releasing in 2025. Perkins’s The Grace of Black Mothers and Franson-Thiel’s Bone Valley Hymnal both centralize on the impact of maternal lineage. What burdens do we lift from our mothers’ shoulders? How does poetry help us explore our inherited traumas? This event will showcase both debut collections and curate a conversation about publishing as a student. 

About the Writers and Moderator

Taylor Franson-Thiel is the author of “Bone Valley Hymnal” (ELJ Editions 2025). She is an editorial reader for Poetry Daily, the Assistant Poetry Editor for phoebe and the EIC of BRAWL. She can be found on Twitter @TaylorFranson and at taylorfranson-thiel.com

Martheaus Perkins was born to a single mother in Center, Texas. After a childhood in and out of homes in Houston, he graduated from Stephen F. Austin University as a first-generation student. His debut poetry collection, "The Grace of Black Mothers," releases in 2025. He currently lives in the DMV, co-edits BRAWL Lit, and teaches at George Mason University.

Katey Funderburgh is a queer poet from Colorado. As a current MFA student at George Mason University, she is a co-coordinator for the Incarcerated Writer's Project of phoebe journal. She serves as a Poetry Alive! fellow and is a 2025 Cheuse Travel Research Grant recipient. Her favorite things include very tall trees, very strong coffee, and her very wonderful community. 

Join Murals at Mason and the Native American and Indigenous Alliance to help paint a mural on Thursday, April 17, 5-8pm in Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery.

No experience is necessary! All supplies will be provided!

Meet Girasol O’Neill, one of the artists in Offerings to the Potomac: Acknowledging Indigenous Place, and help him paint murals that are going on Old Town Hall in the City of Fairfax this summer!

Come make your own plantable paper! Participants will create their own handmade cotton paper, imbued with wildflower seeds, which can be planted or used for artistic projects.

Registration is free but required to hold your spot, as there is limited space in the paper making studio. No experience necessary and all materials provided!

This workshop is offered in conjunction with the opening of Fenwick Library’s Seed Library and the exhibition Cross-Pollination on view in Fenwick Gallery through April 25.

Location: Art & Design Building, room 1009
Instructor: Forrest Lawson, Printmaking & Letterpress Studio Manager

Join Murals at Mason and UndocuMason to help paint a mural on Tuesday, April 15, 3-7pm in Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery.

No experience is necessary! All supplies will be provided!

Meet Girasol O’Neill, one of the artists in Offerings to the Potomac: Acknowledging Indigenous Place, and help him paint murals that are going on Old Town Hall in the City of Fairfax this summer!

Join us on Friday, April 11, 12-3pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington to imagine joy with James Baldwin in the current art exhibition, Nothing Personal: A Collaboration in Black and White.

12:00PM-1:00PM - Enjoy coffee, tea, light breakfast and experience a one-of-its-kind art exhibit

1:00PM-2:30PM - Meet others and participate in a reading group with Kritikos. Theme of this semester is The Power of Imagining, and this session will highlight the influential James Baldwin.

About Kritikos

Members of the community (near and far) are called to meet online each semester for a 90-minute session once a week with a goal of long-term commitment to relationship building, awareness, reimagining, transformation, and action, around anti-racist practices, racial justice, and the creation of conversations as well as systems of compassion and healing. We continue to focus on anti-Black racism and its effects on society.  
  
Grounded in the knowledge that it is not a question of whether we are racist, but rather, how racism is expressed and experienced in ourselves, our lives, our behaviors, and our institutions, we explore books, music, art, essays, podcasts, and documentaries that allow us to critically question and consider our roles as artists, thinkers, citizens, and creatives in a society founded on racist values and practices. All are welcome.

Celebrate the beauty of plants and photography! Join us to learn about cyanotypes, a special photographic process that uses sunlight, and make your own prints using botanical pictures, seeds, or plant matter. 

Registration is free but required to hold your place. No experience is required, and all materials will be provided. Participants are welcome to bring their own flowers or other materials to make the prints.

Please note this is scheduled as an outdoor workshop! We will meet in the Fenwick Library lobby before moving outside. In the event of rain or inclement weather, we will move indoors to Fenwick 2001.

This workshop is offered in conjunction with the opening of Fenwick Library’s Seed Library and the exhibition Cross-Pollination on view in Fenwick Gallery through April 25.

Location: Fenwick Library Atrium (rain location: Fenwick 2001)
Instructor: Liz Louise Johnson, MFA candidate & Fenwick Gallery GRA

Join us for free food and fun activities as you learn more about campus resources and Patriot Packout, George Mason's donation initiative that collects new, like-new, and gently used items, beginning April 21-May 14!

When: 12PM - 4PM on Thursday, April 10

Where: SUB I Patriots Lounge (2nd Floor Lobby)

Mason Exhibitions invites you to a special fundraising in support of Before the Americas, an upcoming exhibition highlighting rich and diverse artistic traditions, curated by Cheryl Edwards.

Enoy an afternoon of art, conversation, and community in support of this important project!

Your donations will directly support the exhibition's research, curation, and presentation! Every donation makes a difference.

Saturday, April 5, 3:00-4:30PM
The Kreeger Museum, Washington, DC
2401 Foxhall Rd NW, Washington DC 20007

Visual Voices is a lecture series hosted by Mason Exhibitions and the School of Art and Design. We look forward to seeing you online on Thursday, April 3, 4:45pm to 6:30 pm.

Jordan Nassar is a Palestinian-American artist who was born and raised in New York City. Extending from this, his work evokes a very particular kind of imagined space: the sort of utopian vision of Palestine held by the displaced constituents that comprise the region’s diaspora.

RSVP is required to receive the zoom link the day-of the event via email! Please note, this event is online only!

Questions and concerns should be emailed to Jeffrey Kenney at jkenney5@gmu.edu. 

Join Mason Exhibitions, Facilities & Campus Operations, and the School of Art for a Cyanotype Workshop to kick-off Earth Month!

Drop in anytime from 11am-3pm at the rear lower level patio of the Art and Design building for this workshop!

Donated plain t-shirts in various sizes will be provided by Patriot Packout. Paper will also be available.

Cyanotype is a photographic printing process that produces a blue-colored print. It involves using two chemicals, ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, which react when exposed to sunlight or UV light to create a blue image.

Interested in growing your own food? Want to get into gardening? Join us for the opening day of the Seed Library at Fenwick Library!

The Seed Library is a Patriot Green Fund project meant to encourage gardening and growing your own food at home. Patrons take seeds from the library, grow them, then harvest, dry, and return the seeds.

Seed libraries have quickly grown in popularity around the country, being found in public libraries, community centers, community gardens, makerspaces, and university libraries. The concept of the seed library model is that the library is stocked with seeds, which patrons take, grow, and then return seeds to the library. The emphasis, however, is on the taking and growing of seeds and less on the drying and returning, given the experience of other seed libraries. They promote growing your own food, wellbeing, community, and learning in a hands-on way.

Join us at Mason Exhibitions Arlington on Saturday, March 22 from 11am-5pm for drop-in Mask Making with Steven Luu using materials from the Nothing Personal exhibition and graphic chronology.

Steven Luu

The wounds of combat have had a profound impact on Steven Luu. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he is a survivor of the Communist oppression. For nearly 46 years, he was relocated to numerous places. Him and his family were placed in re-education camps by Vietnamese Communist when he was only 1 year old. Escaping to freedom on a small fishing boat when he was 7-year-old boy and spent over two months floating on the open sea until rescued by the British Royal Navy and taken to a Hong Kong refugee camp. In 1991, Steven and his family arrived in the United States-again-as refugees. After completing high school in 1995, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served for 20 years as a Medic. For 11 of those years, he was stationed in Europe-spending three years in combat zones. In all his numerous deployments to the Middle East, he witnessed many violent deaths, and those experiences have had a profound psychological impact on him. 

He was first introduced to art by the intensive treatment program provided by Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Steven recognizes that art allows him to present his feelings comfortably and focuses on expressing traumatic experiences creatively and non-verbally. As someone with a background in the medical field and a wounded veteran himself, he relates deeply to many service members that return home suffering from the aftereffects of deployment, such as feeling guilty or isolated. He creates his art both to help and communicate with others, focusing on mental health-related matters. Through the years, he has earned a BA in Theology and BFA with a concentration in sculpture. As an artist, he is an advocate for veterans. When the opportunity arises, he guides and encourages many fellow wounded veterans to find a new language to express their pain and emotions – the language of art. Steven is well known for producing serialized artwork; he believes the repetition method helps dedramatize his past and is a form of discipline to understand the materials. 

Visual Voices is a lecture series hosted by Mason Exhibitions and the School of Art and Design. We look forward to seeing you in person or online on Thursday, March 20, 4:45pm to 6:30 pm.

Adriana Monsalve (she /they) is an artist, educator, cultural worker and collaborative publisher working (mostly) in the photobook medium. Along with Caterina Ragg, Monsalve is co-founder of Homie House Press, a radical cooperative platform that challenges the ever-changing forms of storytelling with image and text.

Within her photographic practice, Monsalve is an archivist and visual communicator who produces in-depth stories on identity through the nuances in between race, gender, and immigrant adjacent experiences.

As an educator, she enacts radical imagination in the classroom daily. Monsalve believes it is the first step in building worlds we can safely live in. She says, “..art maps our journey toward liberation. To realize our freedom fantasies for our larger community, we also engage with education between the practices of imagination and creation. I am certain liberation comes in communal form, because the culture of white-supremacy that we were all born into, thrives on individualism.. In contrast, imagination taps into our desires, so that we can share (education) and realize them collectively (creation).”

This event will be held at the Center for the Arts Concert Hall on the GMU Fairfax campus and online via Zoom. RSVP is required to receive the link via email the day-of!

Join us on Tuesday, March 18, 5:30-7:30pm at Buchanan Hall Atrium Gallery for the Reception of Offerings to the Potomac: Acknowledging Indigenous Place.

You will meet the curators and hear from School of Art alumni artists whose work are featured in the show!

Questions about the event should be emailed to Yassmin Salem (mailto: ysalem@gmu.edu)

Join us on Friday, March 7, 5-7pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington for an evening read aloud and conversation by international and local writers: 2025 Cheuse Fellow: Klara Kalu; Prof. Vivek Narayanan: Author of "After"; Malik Thompson: Washington based writer; and Itoro Bassey: journalist and author. The evening is designed around the visit of Spring Cheuse Fellow: Danson Kahyana who will also be reading his creative work.

The evening will explore aspects of queerness and intimacy through literature and allyship. 

The boat (borrowed from songwriter Noah Kahan)  are the ideas that keep us afloat, conveying the beauty of the Republic of Imagination (borrowed from Azar Nafisi)! The images are from the cover of "After" by Vivek Narayanan. 

Featuring Danson Kahyana

The Cheuse Center is proud to announce Danson Kahyana as the Spring 2025 Cheuse Center Scholar. Kahyana, an esteemed writer and academic from Uganda, will visit the Washington area from March 2 to March 8, 2025.

This prestigious fellowship, supported by the Scholl Foundation, is dedicated to providing opportunities for writers at risk, offering them a space to create, reflect, and share their stories. Kahyana’s work—marked by its courage, depth, and humanity—has long amplified underrepresented narratives, making him an exceptional fit for this honor.

During his residency, Kahyana will engage with students, faculty, and the local literary community through public readings, and conversations about his work and the broader challenges faced by writers globally. 

We are thrilled to host Danson Kahyana and looks forward to the impactful contributions he will bring to the spring program. Stay tuned for updates on events and opportunities.

MORE ABOUT DANSON KAHYANA: Sylvester Danson Kahyana is a visiting professor in the English Department at Boston College. Previously, he was a Fellow at the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy and Research, Harvard Kennedy School, having survived a brutal attack on his life on April 26, 2022. He holds a PhD in English Studies from Stellenbosch University, South Africa (where he is an Associate Researcher in the English Department) and an MA and BA in Literature from Makerere University (where he was an Associate Professor in the Literature Department before he fled Uganda). Uganda’s contributing editor to Index on Censorship and a former board member of PEN International as well as a former President of Ugandan PEN, he has defended artistic freedom and human rights for over two decades. A published poet and anthologist, he has edited five books and published more than 30 scholarly papers. Some of the awards he has received include the Social Science Research Council’s African Peacebuilding Network Individual Award (2023), the Fulbright Research Fellowship Award (2021), and the American Council of Learned Societies’ African Humanities Postdoctoral Award (2015).

ABOUT ITORO BASSEY: Itoro Bassey is the author of Faith (Malarkey Books, 2022) and a journalist at the BBC. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Slice, Catapult, and Hippocampus, among others. A new piece of hers 'How Eno Became Enobong' is forthcoming in Fence (March 2025). 
She is the recent winner of the W.S. Porter Prize for her short short story collection Ajebutter Woman that will published in 2027 through Regal House Publishing. This collection is poised to complicate notions surrounding identity and social dynamics while engaging readers with its rich storytelling. Some of the other awards she has received are from International Literary Seminars, Glimmer Train, and Prairie Schooner. She has received fellowships from the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, the Edward Albee Foundation, and elsewhere. In 2018 she lived between Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia for five years which has broadened her perspective on diaspora and belonging. In her spare time, she supports writers in the Washington, DC area as a board member of The Inner Loop. 

ABOUT MALIK THOMPSON: Malik Thompson (he/they) is a Black queer person from Washington, DC. His work has been published in the Cincinnati Review, Denver Quarterly, Hayden's Ferry Review, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships and residencies from organizations including Cave Canem, Lambda Literary, the Anderson Center, and Monson Arts. He can be found on IG via the handle @latesummerstar.

ABOUT VIVEK NARAYANAN: Vivek Narayanan’s books of poems include Universal Beach, Life and Times of Mr S. His new collection is After (NYRB Poets, 2022).  A full-length collection of his selected poems in Swedish translation was published by the Stockholm-based Wahlström & Widstrand in 2015. Narayanan was born in India and raised in Zambia. He earned an MA in cultural anthropology from Stanford University, and an MFA in creative writing from Boston University. He has been a Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University (2013-14) and a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library (2015-16). His poems, stories, translations and critical essays have appeared in journals like The Paris Review, Chimurenga Chronic, Granta.com, Poetry Review (UK), Modern Poetry in Translation, Harvard Review, Agni, The Caribbean Review of Books and elsewhere, as well as in anthologies like The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poetry. Narayanan is also a member of Poetry Daily’s editorial board. He was the Co-editor of Almost Island, an India-based international literary journal from 2007-2019. He teaches at George Mason University in Virginia.

ABOUT KLARA KALU: Klara Kalu is an MFA Creative Writing student specializing in Fiction at George Mason University. She writes contemporary stories that enlighten and offer insights into the intricacies of African narratives, focusing on themes of love, loss, and emotional depths of human connection. Her work explores the spaces between tradition and modernity, memory and reinvention, offering fresh perspectives on identity and belonging. With the Cheuse Fellowship, Klara is traveling to Barbados to explore the echoes of culture and kinship within the island’s communities. Through archival research, oral histories, and on-the-ground immersion, she aims to trace how ancestral ties have endured across generations despite displacement and erasure. Her project seeks to breathe life into forgotten stories, reconnecting threads between the Caribbean and Africa, and reimagining the ways in which history continues to shape contemporary diasporic experiences.

ABOUT NOTHING PERSONAL This exhibition closely examines the book, Nothing Personal (1964), a collaborative artwork in book form by two legendary American artists, James Baldwin, the African American writer, public intellectual, and civil rights activist, and Richard Avedon the Jewish fashion and portrait photographer. Learn more here:  https://www.masonexhibitions.org/exhibitions/nothing-personal-mea

Art work in this post is from the cover of "After", by Vivek Narayanan. This cover is from his Indian edition, published by Harper Collins.  

More information on the lineup to come! 

Join us on Thursday, March 6, 6-8pm at Mason Exhibitions Arlington for a film screening of ‘Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round’, followed by a brief Q&A with the filmmaker, Ilana Trachtman. The film is about the desegregation of Glen Echo Park, and it discusses the role that Howard University students played in leading this effort.

For almost 60 years, Glen Echo Amusement Park was the wholesome, beloved playground of white metropolitan Washington, DC. Every summer, tens of thousands enjoyed its Crystal Pool, wooden rollercoaster, Spanish Ballroom, and Tunnel of Love. But the Black children living nearby could only gawk from the road.

In June of 1960, three shocking, unprecedented events happened at “idyllic” Glen Echo Amusement Park:

• Howard University Students arrived up at the Park, and sat down on the carousel.

• White, middle-aged neighbors, largely Jewish, joined the protests.

• The American Nazi Party showed up.

AIN'T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND is the forgotten story of how those three events shook metropolitan Washington, forced sides, changed lives, and ignited sparks that flew out across the Civil Rights Movement for years to come.

Using just-discovered archival footage, and focusing on the stories of six individuals, viewers are transported to those heady days, when private businesses could choose their customers, and the walls between Black and white were so high that friendships were unimaginable.

AIN’T NO BACK TO A MERRY-GO-ROUND offers a rare intimate lens on one protest in the early Civil Rights Movement. Telling the story of one amusement park, one group of individuals, and one moment in time, the laser focus allows for deep understanding of the non-famous individuals whose efforts, sacrifices, and personal awakenings fueled the Civil Rights Movement.